Welcome to the home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys)! Here you’ll find over 5,000 posts and formulas written over the past 16 years for everything from lotions, creams, and body butters to hair care products to fancy facial products filled with actives and cosmeceuticals! Enjoy the site without distractions – no ads, pop ups, sponsored posts, affiliate links, “one weird tricks” – all supported by readers like you.
Susan Barclay-Nichols Shana writes to me: I was reading one of your old blogs about water soluble oils and you stated this: “There are two ways to make water soluble oils – you can mix an oil with an emulsifier (usually polysorbate 80) to make an oil water soluble” You did not explain how to do this exactly. Could you...
I’ve really enjoyed my holiday time away from work, and I thought I’d post a few pictures of the (non-edible) cupcake-y goodness I’ve been working on with my sewing machine. I generally hand sew all my projects – purses, shorts, skirts, coffee cozies, and so on – but I wanted to get my best friend’s...
I’ve been asked to post my recent labels as a PDF, so here you are. (I have instructions on how to modify them in the PDF). I don’t know how useful they will be as they are designed to fit on the bottles I own, but if you like them, then I’m a happy camper!...
As I’ve mentioned in the past, my husband has vitiligo, and his legs get very itchy during the winter (too dry) and the summer (exposure), so I’m always thinking of ways to create products to stop him from scratching and to help heal the wounds. (Not making any claims here, just going on what the...
Welcome to Workshop Stadium. This week the Chairman, Raymond (my lovely husband), has chosen the second Iron Chemist ingredient – sodium cocoyl isethionate. Here are the rules. Every week I will ask my husband to choose a number between 1 and 10. These represent boxes of supplies in my workshop. Once he has chosen a...